


a good uncle

by alienjack



Series: qrangst [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Heartache, Light Angst, Possibly Unrequited Love, Unresolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21701524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienjack/pseuds/alienjack
Summary: Qrow looks up to see Tai already watching him, and he hates the way his chest heats and his stomach flips when he meets those blue eyes. He feels like he should be too old for this, or he should have grown out of it ages ago.Qrow is in Patch, helping Taiyang with six-year-old Ruby and eight-year-old Yang. More than anything, the little family needs stability right now, so he knows better than to ever confess his feelings to Tai. The time for that passed a long time ago. He doesn't even know if those feelings are reciprocated.
Relationships: One-Sided Qrow Branwen/Taiyang Xiao Long, Qrow Branwen & Taiyang Xiao Long, mentions of past tai/raven and tai/summer
Series: qrangst [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564252
Comments: 22
Kudos: 88





	1. qrow

**Author's Note:**

> "unrequited taiqrow" requested by daboboy on tumblr. this is a bit rambling and probably a little difficult to follow in some spots, but i think it fits the Mood

“I -- AM -- SUPERDAD!” Taiyang shouts, raising his arms and lifting both his daughters in the air. Yang whoops and hollers, swinging on his right bicep, while Ruby just sits up on his shoulder and clings to his forearm as he flexes.

Qrow snorts loudly from where he leans against the threshold of the doorway. “Superdad still has to eat dinner.”

“Uncle Qrow! Uncle Qrow!” Ruby shouts. “Watch this, I can fly!” and she lets go of Tai’s arm and makes an aborted attempt to throw herself forward to the floor. Tai’s Dad Reflexes are phenomenal, though, and he snatches her by the back of her shirt before she can hit the ground, releasing her gently to the floor and setting Yang back down as well.

Ruby sticks her tongue out at her father. “I coulda done it!”

“You don’t have all your feathers yet, baby bird,” Tai tells her, ruffling her hair before she darts off to the kitchen, pausing for two seconds to hug Qrow’s leg.

Yang peers up at her uncle in the skeptical way of eight-year-olds. “Whadya make for dinner?”

“I bought pizza,” Qrow answers, smug as her face breaks into a wide smile-- a mirror of her own father’s. She certainly didn’t get her cheerier demeanor from her mother. Yang sprints after her little half-sister.

Qrow looks up to see Tai already watching him, and he hates the way his chest heats and his stomach flips when he meets those blue eyes. He feels like he should be too old for this, or he should have grown out of it ages ago. Certainly, at the very least, nine years ago when Raven had called him half-panicked and half-enraged to announce that she was pregnant. (When she had decided her little family was worth enough to stick around for. When she loved Tai enough to settle down on a little island in Vale, when Qrow was still her confidant. When STRQ was still STRQ instead of TQ.)

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Tai says. Suddenly, the lines around his eyes seem so much more pronounced than usual, and Qrow realizes with sharp clarity how the two of them are getting older. How Taiyang is still so beautiful, how he never lost his warm boyish charm that had sent his teammates smitten by the end of the first day-- not that Raven would admit it for a long time. Not that Qrow would ever admit it at all.

Qrow shrugs it off, turning to follow the girls. “Just trying to do what I can,” he responds over his shoulder.

* * *

How funny, he thinks, it would be, how heartbreaking, if Qrow could ever bring himself to tell Tai, the way Summer had after Raven left. For Tai to know how his whole team had Taiyang-shaped holes burned into their hearts.

(It had happened in reverse: Qrow first, finding himself fumbling over words on his first day, an eighteen-year-old feeling stupidly fifteen, until he found a way to squash the butterflies; then Summer had whispered to Qrow, had blushed and admitted that Tai had found his way into her heart too. Raven never told anyone, but Qrow knew. And as soon as Team STRQ graduated from Beacon, she’d grabbed onto Tai like she would never let go-- and then she did. And then Summer went and held Yang like her own while Qrow was off running after Ozpin’s monsters. He knew she never resented Raven, the way Qrow has never resented either of them. They were family, all of them, in all of its complexity. Qrow would die for any of them.

Some days, he wishes he could, to bring Summer back by taking her place. Those are the days when he starts drinking before noon.)

* * *

The four of them eat pizza, hot and gooey and cheesy. Yang is going through a growth spurt and eats three whole pieces by herself, quite a feat for a second-grader. Ruby, the same bizarre weirdo as her mother, starts with the crust and eats to the pointed end.

After dinner is homework time (or, what constitutes as homework for an eight-year-old and a six-year-old, which means making Yang sit and focus on reading two chapters of a book and making Ruby sit and focus on a worksheet of addition problems with numbers up to twenty). Then, once homework is done, an episode of a cartoon of choice, and then bed time.

The routine of being part of this family is growing on Qrow. He’s afraid of being too complacent, waiting for it to all go wrong.

He and Tai sit on the couch after putting the kids to bed, finishing off the last few slices of pizza while watching a buddy-cop show. It feels like being back in school again, nineteen and with nothing but a wide future ahead of them.

Qrow looks over at Taiyang, the way the blue TV light plays shadows over his soft features, and a weight settles on his chest in familiar heartache. No one has ever made him feel the way that Tai does, like a constant nauseous feeling, a perpetual fever. It had eased over time, especially when Qrow was gone for long swathes of time, but here, on the couch in the house on Patch, he _feels._

Tai notices him staring, turns and cocks his head and smiles warm and soft and heart-achingly kind. “You okay?”

Qrow’s heart stutters. “Yeah. Just, y’know. Reminiscing. Feels like the old Beacon days.”

Tai chuckles, shaking his head. “Man, if only I was that young again.” Something sad turns his eyes down. “It’s… hard, doing this alone. I wish Summer was here… I wish Raven was here.”

Something sharp digs into Qrow’s chest. “It’s hard to raise kids on your own. But you’re doing great, Tai.”

“I’m not raising them alone,” Tai shoots back immediately, a hesitant smile returning to his face. “I’ve got you here. Having their uncle around is wonderful, Qrow. And it helps to have someone to remind me that ordering in pizza is okay, every once in a while.”

Qrow returns the smile, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “You know I’d do anything for you-- for Yang, for Ruby.”

“I know,” Tai smiles. He rises up from the couch, stretching his muscled arms over his head. Qrow turns away, rolling his own shoulders. “I think it’s time for me to go to bed, myself.” He pulls a folded quilt out from a basket by the couch and throws it at Qrow. “You know if you need anything to come bother me.”

“Of course. Thank you for letting me have an extended stay.”

Tai claps a hand on Qrow’s shoulder as he walks by, pausing to look Qrow dead in the eye. “You’re the best brother I could ever ask for, Qrow. Goodnight, dude.”

“Goodnight,” Qrow laughs, shoving Tai off him.

Once he hears Taiyang’s bedroom door close, Qrow sighs and grabs the quilt, pulling it all the way over his head and shoving his face into the cushion as he growls in frustration. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If he’s going to stick around and be Uncle Qrow, he needs to stop acting like a fool around Tai. The girls don’t need another parent, they need their dad and their uncle. Qrow knows better than to try to change that dynamic now.

Tai doesn’t need any more bad luck in his life. He’s already lost two loves; he doesn’t need the last teammate he has left to try to pull something. Qrow doesn’t have a high enough opinion of himself to think Tai would even accept a confession if Qrow gave him one.

He’s happy to play uncle, even if he’s less of a traditional uncle and more like a secondhand dad. It doesn’t need to be an official title.

Qrow falls asleep, still feeling a weight on his chest from something invisible and impossible to remove.


	2. taiyang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the same one-shot, told from tai's POV

Taiyang hears the front door open and close, meaning that Qrow is back with dinner. Currently, he’s playfully wrestling with the girls, tossing them onto their beds and letting them climb all over him. Ruby squeals every time he tosses her particularly high, while Yang keeps throwing challenges at him: “Bet you can’t make me touch the ceiling! Bet you can’t land Ruby right on that pillow! Bet you can’t pick us both up at the same time!”

It’s during that last challenge that Qrow comes by. Tai can’t help but be a little pleased with himself that the timing is so good: “I -- AM -- SUPERDAD!” he shouts, flexing as he holds a girl on each arm. He cherishes the way Ruby clings to him, knowing that soon she’ll be too big for all this, and he grits his teeth at the way Yang’s swinging is giving him a minor skin burn.

“Superdad still has to eat dinner,” Qrow says from the doorway, with his devil-may-care smirk, casually leaning against the door jamb.

“Uncle Qrow! Uncle Qrow!” Ruby shouts. “Watch this, I can fly!”

She lets go of Tai’s arm and flings herself forward, and suddenly time slows down as Tai immediately makes to grab the back of her shirt. His reflexes have always been good, but the older the girls get, the more he realizes that Dad Reflexes are  _ real. _ He lowers her until her feet touch the floor, lowering his other arm too to get Yang off him.

Ruby sticks her tongue out at him, something very reminiscent of her mother, and says, “I coulda done it!”

Tai adores her. “You don’t have all your feathers yet, baby bird,” he says, giving her hair a ruffle.

She darts off toward the kitchen immediately, but stops in the doorway to give Qrow’s leg a hug. Tai’s heart swells. That kid is a dang sweetheart.

Yang, on the other hand, greets Qrow not with a hug but a skeptical glare. Tai thinks it makes her look just like Raven, and he wonders if Qrow feels like he’s being pinned by his sister’s own stare when Yang looks at him like that.

“Whadya make for dinner?” is her damning question. Tai adores her.

“I bought pizza,” Qrow says, and just like that, Yang is grinning, no longer reminiscent of her mother, sprinting after Ruby to the kitchen.

Tai finds himself already staring at his old teammate. Qrow has always been beautiful, in his lanky, edgy-kid way. Tai thinks he might just have a thing for red-- red eyes, red hair. Sometimes he thinks about how he was the only spot of bright color in STRQ, how the rest of the team balanced in whites and blacks and red, red, red.

Qrow looks up from where Yang was and meets Tai’s eyes, and Tai feels his stomach jump. It shouldn’t, he thinks. Not after Raven. Not after Summer. Tai knows-- he does, he  _ knows-- _ that it wasn’t his fault that Raven left, wasn’t his fault that Summer died. But with both of them gone, how can he dare let himself reach out to the last teammate he has left?

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Tai says. Those are the only words he can put to the feeling.

Qrow shrugs it off, turning to follow the girls. “Just trying to do what I can,” he responds over his shoulder.

How funny, Tai thinks, it would be, how heartbreaking, if he could ever bring himself to tell Qrow the way that each of his teammates had seared their way into his heart, each had a piece of him and yet all of him all at once. He remembers the Beacon days, how he used to watch Qrow from afar, how Raven had felt so sudden but so similar all at once-- she had been colder, more distant, but they complimented each other like that. How, after Raven left, Summer had been nothing but a cornerstone of support, had so easily picked up little Yang and smiled and said, “Can you say ‘Summer’?” and Yang and babbled, "Somma, Somma, Somma!"

Qrow had always been a different kind of distant. Like he was trying to hide from the world. Sure, he came off as cocky and confident when put under a spotlight, but Tai knew better. He just wished he knew what Qrow was hiding.

Tai shakes his head of his reminiscing and follows Qrow into the kitchen. It isn’t often that they buy take-out or anything like it; Tai enjoys cooking, and he usually just makes all their meals. But… things have been hard, lately. He goes through ups and downs. He has gotten better over time, but sometimes… Yang tells Qrow that Tai “goes away from his body” every once in a while. Tai’s doctor calls it depression.

He wrangles the girls into doing their homework for the night, and Qrow helps him tuck them in. Ruby looks at her (adoptive?) uncle with stars in her eyes every time he visits. Tai knows it’s gonna mean trouble when she grows up, but in the best way.

After, he and Qrow sit on the couch together, watching a buddy-cop show that Tai has seen a million times, finishing off the last of the pizza. After a while, he can feel Qrow’s eyes on him.

“You okay?” Tai asks, wanting to be inviting in case Qrow needed to talk about something.  _ Stop hiding in the shadows, birdie. _

“Yeah,” Qrow answers slowly, like he’s tasting the words before he says them. “Just, y’know. Reminiscing. Feels like the old Beacon days.”

It does, Tai thinks. Warm and comfortable and safe, but no longer does he feel invincible the way he used to. “Man, if only I was that young again,” he says, trying to laugh. Something heavy sits on his chest, slowing him down. “It’s… hard. This, alone. I wish that Summer was here,” he admits. “I wish Raven was here.”  _ But they’re not, and you are. _

Qrow looks sad. “It’s hard to raise kids on your own,” he placates. “But you’re doing great, Tai.”

Tai suddenly realizes what he’d said and immediately responds, “I’m not raising them alone.” The weight on his chest is gone, the lethargy lifted. “I’ve got you here. Having their uncle around is wonderful, Qrow.” He gives Qrow a crooked smile, the one he’d had patented back in Beacon, an expression he knew was charming and soothing all at once. “And it helps to have someone to remind me that ordering in pizza is okay, every once in a while.”

He knows that smile doesn’t work on Qrow. It never has. It’s like the guy is the only person in the world immune to all of Tai’s “tricks” and charm. But it never hurts to try, he supposes. Besides, the last thing anyone in this house needs is another disaster attempt at a nuclear family. Tai knows better than to think he’ll ever give the girls another parent. He’s fine being a single dad, knows that Qrow is best suited to be the uncle who sometimes disappears on exciting adventures, bringing back stories of monsters and mysteries.

“You know I’d do anything for you-- for Yang, for Ruby,” Qrow smiles, unfazed.

“I know,” Tai smiles back. He’s not sure if Qrow realizes how charming  _ that _ smile is. To avoid going down that rabbit hole and making impulsive, stupid mistakes that will ruin everything, Tai rises from the couch to go to bed. He can’t help but stretch his arms above him, something natural and yet show-offy all the same. Despite raising two little girls on his own and the constant business that comes with it, Tai has managed to stay fit for a guy his age. “I think it’s time for me to go to bed, myself,” he announces, hunting around for the spare quilt they keep for Qrow’s visits. “You know if you need anything to come bother me.”  _ I’ll be awake. Tell me what you’re hiding. Trust me? Let me hold you together. _

“Of course. Thank you for letting me have an extended stay.”

It isn’t lost on Tai how Qrow had averted his eyes when Tai had stood and stretched, the minor tenseness in the man’s voice now.

Tai should know better.

He clasps a hand on Qrow’s shoulder as he walks by-- just one more second, just to know he’s not alone, that Qrow is  _ here-- _ and says, “You’re the best brother I could ever ask for, Qrow. Goodnight, dude.” There. Weirdness averted. Qrow has no reason to think that Tai would come on to him… and Tai has to remind himself that he really, really needs to get these stray feelings under control.

“Goodnight,” Qrow laughs, and the tenseness is gone. Tai sighs inwardly: Qrow just needed to be reminded that everything between them is good and fine just how it is. Tai wonders if he might’ve been too pushy tonight… although he can’t think of anything obvious or specific that could’ve led Qrow to realize the extent of Tai’s feelings.

Tai resolves to just do better. The last thing he needs is for his best friend-- the uncle of one of his daughters, family to all four of them-- to disappear, too, for finding out that Tai had somehow managed to get every single one of his teammates stuck in his head and his heart. Qrow already has enough bad luck as it is. Tai doesn’t need to give him any more stress.

Just as long as his bird flies home every now and then, and knows that Tai and the girls  _ are _ his home.

Tai stays awake for too long, listening to the house. Ruby has already started snoring, but maybe she’s starting to develop allergies? Qrow definitely snores like the old man he is. Satisfied that everyone else is asleep, Tai allows himself to relax and drift off himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, sorry, did i say "unrequited"? i meant "unresolved pining" >:)
> 
> tai is a much more subtle person than qrow. but wow that man has such a big heart *sobs*

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @qrangst ! i'll write any qrow angst ya want


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